Cowboys As Cold Warriors: The Western And U S HistoryThough the United States emerged from World War II with superpower status and quickly entered a period of economic prosperity, the stresses and contradictions of the Cold War nevertheless cast a shadow over American life. The same period marked the heyday of the western film. Cowboys as Cold Warriors shows that this was no coincidence. It examines many of the significant westerns released between 1946 and 1962, analyzing how they responded to and influenced the cultural climate of the country. Author Stanley Corkin discusses a dozen films in detail, connecting them to each other and to numerous others. He considers how these cultural productions both embellished the myth of the American frontier and reflected the era in which they were made. Films discussed include: My Darling Clementine, Red River, Duel in the Sun, Pursued, Fort Apache, Broken Arrow, The Gunfighter, High Noon, Shane, The Searchers, Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Magnificent Seven, The Alamo, Lonely Are the Brave, Ride the High Country, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 19 | |
Duel in the Sun Pursued and Fort Apache | 51 |
Broken Arrow and The Gunfighter | 94 |
High Noon Shane and The Searchers | 127 |
Gunfight at the OK Corral The Magnificent Seven and The Alamo | 164 |
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Alamo American Apache articulate assertion audiences becomes Broken Arrow Callum camera cattle central character civilization Clantons Cold War liberalism Communist conflict conquest Copyrighted Material Crockett cultural Darling Clementine defined depicted disrupted Doniphon Duel Dunson Earp economic emphases empire Ethan ethos fifties figures film's Ford's Fort Apache frame frontier genre Goldwater Gunfighter Hadleyville hegemony heroes High Noon high-key lighting historical Hollywood ideological imperialism individual Jeffords John Ford Judd Kennedy Korea Korean War land Magnificent Seven matter melodrama ment military modern moral narrative nostalgia Pearl political postwar production Red River region result rhetoric Ringo role scene Searchers Shane shift Shot Liberty Valance shows significant social Soviet strategy tells Texas three films tion Tombstone town traditional U.S. history ultimately United University Press Vietnam viewers violence vision Wayne West Western genre Westerns Westrum World War II Wyatt Wyatt Earp York